Sunday Lunch

DP and I often have a Sunday lunch at, erm, lunchtime, then in the evening we have a pudding, often a fruit crumble with custard or evaporated milk. I always used to make custard using dried powder and UHT milk. Then one day, having spotted value custard, I worked out the costs, and it is actually cheaper to buy it ready made. That was a bit of a surprise for someone who makes everything she can to keep costs down. So sometimes I use a tin of custard

What you need to make an oaty apple crumble

• Oats – I use ordinary value oats, but you could use half jumbo oats for more texture if you like
• Self raising flour – self raising gives the topping a little bit or lift, but you certainly don’t need it, plain is absolutely fine
• Vegetable oil – any neutral flavoured oil is fine. I usually use rapeseed oil
• Sugar – I usually use granulated
• Apples – nothing too sweet, sweet apples tend not to make a very satisfactory crumble. Bramley is ideal, but more expensive. I tend t use whatever I’ve got in the fruit bowl, so long as it’s not a very sweet variety.
• A bit of lemon juice if you like

 

How to make apple crumble

This is a very simple recipe, no complicated method

• First of all prepare your apples. If you don’t mind the peel, quarter them and scoop out the tough little core and pips. Then chop and put in an ovenproof dish
• There is no need to put sugar on the fruit, it just adds unnecessary sweetness
• To speed up things in the oven, I like to microwave the apple pieces for a couple of minutes to semi-cook them. You don’t have to, it just takes longer in the oven if you don’t
• Now take all the dry topping ingredients, tip them into a mixing bowl and stir.
• Add the oil and stir again
• Top the fruit with the crumble mix and bake in a moderate oven for about 40 minutes, or more like 30 minutes if you’ve pre-cooked the apples.

 

DP’s favourites are apple or rhubarb or plum – hence our little apple and plum trees and our forest of rhubarb

 

I use this pyrex dish to make them in – I now have three of them, all from charity shops, and they are THE most useful things for 2 people. I use them for these crumbles, cauli and pasta cheese, savoury crumbles, pasta bakes etc etc. I make a 4 portion recipe and put half in each of two dishes and have the 2nd half the next day

This also helps with portion control as left to his own devices, DP would eat the leftovers and leave me with a little bit in the corner of the dish that isn’t even half a portion. He does this with the crumbles. Theoretically, they are 4 portions, but I serve up half, then the rest gets scoffed by DP on his way  through the kitchen. All except the little bit in the corner. Makes me wish we had a dog to feed it to!

This particular recipe is for meal plan three, so I will use the quantities for that. There are a great many variations for fruit crumble, I will suggest some at the bottom.

What changes can I make

• Add a sprinkle of any or all of sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds.
• Add a handful of chopped nuts, any kind
• Almost any fruit will make a tasty crumble. As well as those below, how about apricot, cherry or peach. I’ve never tried pineapple – would that work do you think?

Apple

• toasted, chopped almonds or toasted chopped pecans and cinnamon/mixed spice in the topping (mix in a tsp cinnamon/mixed spice and smell the mix, repeat until you can smell the spice), serve with cinnamon ice cream
• This post has an easy recipe to make ice cream. For cinnamon ice cream, make the base recipe, then stir in cinnamon. Try a little to start with, stir well and smell and taste the mix. Does it taste of as much cinnamon as you would like? If not, add more and repeat
• lemon zest and toasted hazlenuts in the crumble, serve with lemon ice cream
• plain topping or with hazelnuts, stir a couple of cloves into the apple, serve with custard or cream
• toasted walnuts in topping. serve with dark muscovado ice cream

Pear

• toasted walnuts and demerara sugar in topping, serve with coffee ice cream

Plum

• toasted walnuts and muscovado sugar in topping, and use wholemeal flour

Rhubarb

• finely chopped ginger/stem ginger in the fruit or the topping, serve with ginger ice cream
• orange zest in the topping mix or the fruit

Gooseberry

• add sugar or a good splash of undiluted elderflower cordial, serve with elderflower ice cream

Mixed Fruit

• A super simple, and seasonal, crumble is to use mincemeat. Simply tip a 400g sized jar of mincemeat in the dish and top with crumble mix. Delicious!
• Jack Monroe has posted a delicous sounding Christmas crumble using mixed fruit and peel and tinned mandarins, I will definitely be trying that one – sounds super yummy

Can I change the topping?

 

As well as all the varieties above, you can change the topping in this particular way. I have made crumbles with no flour at all, just oats. You can barely tell the difference (bearing in mind we always have half oats in the topping)

I’ve also successfully made it using just breadcrumbs in place of oats and flour. This was a very light version, with a certain crispiness to it.

Other oaty recipes you might like

Muffins made with mincemeat and oats

 

Chicken and Mushroom Crumble

Oaty Biscuits. Delicious, very versatile and totally irresistible!